GA AI aircraft ?

[warbirds 555]

Any GA ai aircraft available? All I can find are airliners. Looking for Cessna, Cubs and other light planes.

[Janov 2,383]

Any GA ai aircraft available? All I can find are airliners. Looking for Cessna, Cubs and other light planes.

 

I am not sure I understand the question. You can make all the airplanes that are available in X-Plane (including any you bought or downloaded) to be used by the X-Plane AI.

 

There are also a few airplanes to use as "static aircraft" (if that´s what you mean) in the lib system in WED (Cessna 172, King Air, etc.)

 

Jan

[warbirds 555]

There are many versions of airliners made for only ai use. You can put them into X-Plane in the situations section like you can the default aircraft. I was hoping there were some GA light aircraft made for this as well.

 

Using standard models is hard on frame rates so better to use a model made for ai.

[60North 120]

Correct, the airliner packs I made are highly modified in many areas to dramatically improve framerate, but also how they fly and taxi to match the logic of XPs AI system. Think I posted a tutorial somewhere here how to make them that you could also use on GAs.

 

EDIT: Found it;

 

 

 

Some have asked if I can explain a bit more in depth what I do with them si I will.
I hope this might help others do the same with their aircraft, so here goes;

When using "normal" aircraft as AI, this will on most systems result in a SIGNIFICANT framerate drop!
In many cases the sim gets useless if you have more than a couple/few AI aircraft.
These AI aircraft are designed to give as little FPS loss as possible while at the same time
look and perform realistically.

First of all the best result you will get from NON-OBJECT aircraft. However it's not a showstopper.
Most of the XPFW aircraft have some OBJ exterior. Usually the cockpit windows.

1. OK, we obviously don't need the sounds and panel, so remove the "sounds" and "cockpit" folders.
Then remove the files named xxxxxx_panel.png and xxxxxx_panel_LIT.png. Now, open planemaker
and go to the 2D panel menu. Click on the first item in the instrument list to the right. Then, shift click on
the last one so that all items get selected. Then delete. Hit save button (disc). Panel is Gone!

2. Now, it's time to reduce and remove textures in Photoshop. The paint png should not exceed 1024^2 pixels.
The paint1.LIT textures and _pain2.png I reduce to 512^2. The XXX 2_LIT.png I would delete if its
very little on it.

3. Now it's time to get an OVERVIEW of the aircraft exterior. DONT start deleting right away.
Check the following items
- Misc wings (usually antennas and such)
- Misc bodies (wing root, and other 3D items)
- Pylons (sometimes used as antennas etc)
- Fairings (usually gear details)
- Weapons (usually small 3D details)
- Nacelles (nacelles and sometimes other 3D)

Now think carefully what you want to delete. Generally be sceptic about removing big parts and less sceptic about
smaller ones. Start deleting and regularly check how the aircraft looks. DONT SAVE until you are 100% sure
its how you want it. You might have to start all over again if you do a mistake!

4. OK, aircraft should now look as you want it. Time to look at the flightmodel.
Goto wings. Each wing part is devided into sections. How many depends on the complexity of the wing.
Airlines have complex wing and GA's usually simpler. What we want to do is cut back as many sections as possible.
The more sections the more flightmodel calculations. An airliner might have 8 sections, and we want to cut back
to 1-3. As you cut back on the stations be aware that you also change the placement/size of the ailerons, flaps, spoilers etc.
The main thing to worry about here is the FLAPS! We want the flap area to be close as possible as the original. Other wise we
need to do some serious flightmodel changes to lift and drag. (and we are too lazy to do that  )
So lets say the original flap checkbox is checked in 4 out of 8 sections, then we should cut back to 2 section and check 1 box for flaps.
Ailerons and speedbrakes are not that important because
- They don't show very well
- We are not flying the aircraft so the "feel" doesn't matter
- The AI aircraft will manage to brake anyway, (actually we will later reduce them anyway, so you can cut back on the speedbrakes and rollspoilers area if needed to reduce stations)
Now, do the same thing with the rest of the wings and stabilizers. The stabilizers usually can be cut back to just 1 section.
As you delete stations, the wing INCIDENCE at the one end will be wrong, so make a note of what the incidence is on the far right station before you start deleting, then put that incidence into the station thats to the far right AFTER deleting stations..

Now goto the landingear menu. Tune down the nosegear tuning angle to between 30-40 degrees. The AI pilot will often
give full gear deflection and it will just skid and sometimes result in the aircraft getting stuck.

Now, goto to the engine menu. The AI pilot will give full available thrust for takeoff. This is not how it's in real for
many aircraft - like airliners. Far from it. So, we need to reduce thrust to something thats realistic. If you are unsure,
try with 10-20% reduction (derate).

Now, goto the Viewpoint menu. Make sure all the speeds to the left are set at realistic numbers. Especially the the stallspeeds Vs and Vso. X-Plane will look at these to determine takeoff and landing speeds.

5. Now it's time to try the aircraft in the sim. Expect to do some changes so don't get disappointed if it behaves horrible 
Load up a bunch of the same aircraft and study them as they land and takeoff.
Since we deleted bunch of parts, be aware that the aircraft might be a bit low on drag and lift (also depending on your wing change).

A few things to observe;
A. Landing, if the aircraft comes in with a high pitch and plunges to ground you have these options
- Increase the Vs and Vso, the acft will fly faster (you can check the landing speed in the local map by clicking on the acft)
- Reduce empty weight (reduce zero fuel weight)
- Increase flap Cl

B. If the aircraft has very hard landings, 
- reduce speedbrakes area and/or deploy angle
- increase Vs speeds
- If nose slams to ground, move CG a tad backwards.

C: If takeoff distance is long/short, adjust weight or thrust

D: X-Plane uses the the speedbrakes for adjusting airspeed. So if you see them deploy all the time
you might want to increase drag or reduce thrust. Especially if the pitch/speed is correct and the speedbrakes deploy just before touchdown.

Do only a couple of changes at the time and observe again until you are happy 

[warbirds 555]

Thank you very much for that detailed tutorial.